All Articles: Cases

In a big win for legal aid lawyers and their clients, the High Court has held to be unlawful the refusal of legal aid in six test cases and has additionally held unlawful the guidance applied by the Legal Aid Agency in refusing legal aid: It follows from what I...

13th June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The case of Rodriguez, Mandalia and Patel [2014] EWCA Civ 2 is to be reconsidered by the Supreme Court, this months grants of permission reveals. The case concerns the ‘evidential flexibility’ policy that I think was first publicly revealed here on Free Movement. It is a chance for the Supreme Court...

12th June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

In the fine case of Fetle (Partners: two year requirement) [2014] UKUT 00267 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal holds that the requirement in paragraph 352AA for partners of refugees seeking entry clearance for living together in a relationship akin to either a marriage or a civil partnership which has subsisted for two years or...

11th June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The first of these is a useful short case that came out while I was away called Shen (Paper appeals; proving dishonesty) [2014] UKUT 236 (IAC). It is another example of an applicant with a driving conviction who ticked the ‘no’ box to the question about previous convictions standard on all immigration...

10th June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

This post has been contributed by, Vijay Jagadesham, who represented the College in Global Vision College Ltd v SSHD[2014] EWCA Civ 659. Readers would be forgiven for thinking that this question was clearly answered by the Supreme Court in the case of Alvi v SSHD [2012] 1 WLR 2208, and the subsequent...

6th June 2014
BY Vijay Jagadesham

If the use of detention for warehousing persons liable to deportation or removal has become a serious problem, it is in part because of repeated failures by the Home Office to limit the exercise of powers given to it by Parliament to the purpose for which they are intended. Source

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3rd June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Born just before the revolution in 1978, a man known only as DA grew up an orphan in Iran. He understood that his father had been tortured for his political beliefs and he was raised by his older siblings. When the time came for his compulsory military service, he was...

29th May 2014
BY Colin Yeo

A child referred to in court only as “Maya” is six years old. She has Spina Bifida and is very severely disabled. She also has severe learning difficulties and extremely complex needs. For the last five years she has received highly specialised medical treatment and has attended a special school...

27th May 2014
BY Colin Yeo

UPDATE: Haleemudeen on remittal to UT: SoS conceded Edgehill applied, no need for deference to post-July 2012 and found disproportionate on Art 8 — Mansfield Chambers (@MansfieldImm) June 20, 2014 The facts of Haleemudeen v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 558 reveal another of those...

22nd May 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Official headnote: The requirement to prove the existence of “contracts” in paragraph 41-SD of Appendix A to the immigration rules does not itself require the contracts in question to be contained in documents. There is, however, a need for such contracts to be evidenced in documentary form. The Home Office...

16th May 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The Supreme Court has allowed the Secretary of State’s appeal against the Court of Appeal judgment in the case of R (on the application of Fitzroy George) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] UKSC 28. The Court of Appeal’s judgment was previously covered here on Free Movement....

15th May 2014
BY Colin Yeo

In a new case called NA (UT rule 45: Singh v Belgium) Iran [2014] UKUT 205 (IAC), heard by the President and Dr Storey, the Upper Tribunal has perhaps inadvertently posed a number of problems for practitioners. The issues are all quite distinct, making the case something of a legal chimera. One...

9th May 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Ved and another (appealable decisions; permission applications; Basnet) [2014] UKUT 150 (IAC) is a new case from the Upper Tribunal on the vexed issue of immigration applications the Home Office considers to be invalid. The tribunal takes the view that a Home Office decision that an application is invalid cannot...

28th April 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The present Government has declared its intention to create a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants. True to its word, the Go Home vans, the ‘papers please’ raids on public transport hubs, the targeting of foreign students, the increasingly demented bureaucracy of the immigration rules and the harsh family migration rules are...

10th April 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The Court of Appeal has in the case of Edgehill & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 402 settled the question of whether the new human rights rules introduced on 9 July 2012 apply to applications made before that date: they do not. Specifically,...

9th April 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Important grant of permission from the Court of Appeal in six linked cases addressing issues arising from D and N cases at Strasbourg and subsequent treatment by the UK courts. For some legal background see this earlier blog post. In granting permission Maurice Kay LJ says: I have indicated that...

8th April 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The Supreme Court considered the best interests principle in the immigration, asylum and nationality context twice during 2013.  Both cases continued the trend of the contraction of the principle in the higher appellate courts.

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24th March 2014
BY Bijan Hoshi

In a handy case that arrived just after I’d finished a Court of Appeal skeleton on the same subject, Mr Justice McCloskey has delivered another of his characteristically interesting determinations. This one is MM (unfairness; E & R) Sudan [2014] UKUT 105 (IAC), on the subject of procedural fairness amounting...

19th March 2014
BY Colin Yeo

So says the immigration tribunal in the latest Country Guidance case of QH (Christians – risk )(China) CG [2014] UKUT 86 (IAC).

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17th March 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Like a bad itch that it can’t help but scratch, the tribunal returns again to the subject of Article 8 and ‘the proper approach’. Regretfully the distasteful, injudicious and simply impolite phrase “a run of the mill case” is again deployed, albeit this time in the context of a student...

5th March 2014
BY Colin Yeo

In Hiri v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWHC 254 (Admin) the Administrative Court found for the Claimant in an application for Judicial Review of the Secretary of State’s decision to refuse naturalisation on grounds of ‘good character’. The judgment provides useful judicial comment as to how...

4th March 2014
BY Raza Halim

The Upper Tribunal has in a new judgment [R (on the application of Kumar & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (acknowledgement of service; Tribunal arrangements) (IJR) [2014] UKUT 104 (IAC)] now set out how it will deal with the vast majority of judicial reviews in which the...

3rd March 2014
BY James Packer

So says the tribunal in MD (same-sex oriented males: risk) India CG [2014] UKUT 65 (IAC), anyway. And even if there was risk in the home area, the tribunal considers that relocation within India is generally reasonable and “LGBT support organisations” can provide help going underground if need be (para 170)....

21st February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

For we tribunal watchers the list is notably short. Judicial ambitions to categorise, measure and risk assess the entire world have been scaled back, perhaps because of the impossibility of the task but more likely because resources are being absorbed by the transfer of judicial review into the Upper Tribunal....

20th February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Any asylum practitioner is likely to come across cases where, rather than investigate the merits of an asylum claim, the Home Office seeks to return their client to a third country elsewhere in the European Union deemed under the Dublin II Regulation to have prior responsibility for assessing the claim,...

19th February 2014
BY Mark Symes

There has now been a fairly substantial series of Court of Appeal judgments on the issue of costs orders in an immigration litigation context. These also have wider significance for other public law cases, but immigration law is currently dominating public law litigation, at least by volume, as this widely...

12th February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

You might be forgiven for thinking that when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has already recognised an individual’s status as a refugee, national decision-makers would ordinarily follow suit. After all, UNHCR has unmatched expertise in refugee status determinations, and its determinations are normally made closer in time and...

10th February 2014
BY Richard Reynolds

In one of the earliest cases of the year, Secretary of State for the Home Department v Rodriguez [2014] EWCA Civ 2, the Court of Appeal has overturned the decision of the Upper Tribunal under the new president McCloskey J, Rodriguez (Flexibility Policy) [2013] UKUT 00042 (IAC).

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29th January 2014
BY Sonali Naik

In a new judgment in the case of Reyes v Sweden [2014] EUECJ C-423/12 (BAILII link) the Court of Justice of the European Union has addressed the question of whether a dependent family member must be involuntarily dependent in order to qualify for free movement rights and how far a person’s...

27th January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

This determination was quietly released by the Judicial Office late last year. It is unusual for immigration cases to be publicised in this way. Presumably in this instance it was because of likely public interest in the final outcome rather than the procedural issues arising. It does seem to me,...

22nd January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

When an EU citizen breaks the law of another member state, fundamental questions arise. How should European states treat EU nationals and their family members who have committed crimes? How can the principles of free movement and integration, which are central to the idea of the European Union, be balanced...

20th January 2014
BY Leonie Hirst

Just a short one to observe that the Afghan atheist case is a truly great result. I haven’t myself heard of a case of an atheist getting asylum on that ground before. It is also fantastic to see the students at the Kent Law Clinic getting such a good outcome....

14th January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

It is sad when a judge tasked with deciding whether a British pensioner should live out his last days with his wife or without comments that this was a very run of the mill case Maybe for the judge. In which case the judge should consider his or her position...

8th January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

MK (duty to give reasons) Pakistan [2013] UKUT 641 (IAC) is a corker of a decision from the incoming new President of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal, Mr Justice McCloskey. It is well worth a detailed read. Here, I just set out a few of the...

6th January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Official headnote: (1) All Turkish males are required to undergo military service but exemption can be granted on the grounds of physical or mental disability which includes “sexual identity disorder”. (2) Homosexuality is regarded by the Turkish army as a sexual identity disorder but the perception of homosexuality in Turkey...

2nd January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

In the week before Christmas, at a time when national procrastination levels are at an annual high, the Home Office has had another warning about the need to get on with things when people are locked up.  Hot on the heels of JS (Sudan) v SSHD [2013] EWCA Civ 1378...

18th December 2013
BY Greg Ó Ceallaigh

One of the more pernicious aspects of the so-called automatic deportation provisions in the UK Borders Act 2007 is the provision in s.36 for detention while the Secretary of State considers whether an exception to that Act applies. That is to say you can be detained not only while deportation...

9th December 2013
BY Greg Ó Ceallaigh

The rules governing the PBS are set out in the Immigration Rules and the appendices to those rules. These provisions have now achieved a degree of complexity which even the Byzantine Emperors would have envied. Source

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5th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Short procedural point to this one and the use of some invisible magic hats: Where an application for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal is made to the First-tier Tribunal outside the prescribed period, rule 24(4) of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (Procedure) Rules 2005 requires that the First-tier...

28th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

(1) The right of permanent residence under regulation 15 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 is capable of being established whilst a national of a Member State or a family member of that national is outside the host country. (2) Leaving aside military service, the reasons for that...

26th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo
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